When I was a reporter, I used to wear an old Navy leather flight jacket of my Dad’s that was a little roomy on me (I’m a 40, it’s a 42), which was convenient. It had a map pocket on the inside, where I kept my notebook. And I slung my old Nikkormat SLR on my shoulder under the jacket. I could quickly swing it forward and use it, without removing the jacket.

This arrangement allowed me to hold back from displaying the notebook or the camera until needed.

As a journalist, I’ve always been of the fly-on-the-wall school. I didn’t like to interact with the subject until it was unavoidable. I wanted to see what was really going on first. If I could keep the people in the room from noticing that a reporter was present — or at least from being entirely sure about it — all the better. It minimized the Observer Effect, wherein observer and observed interact through the process of observation.

I wanted them to be honest. I didn’t want them holding back or grandstanding for me.

I didn’t misrepresent myself. At some point, I would need to step forward and ask someone a question, and of course I identified myself. But the longer I could observe the meeting, or event, or whatever, in its unspoiled state, the better. Or so I believed, and still do. So I avoided taking the notebook out until the last possible moment.

Of course, most of the time the main participants — the newsmakers, the people I’d be quoting — knew who I was. But even in a situation in which you know the subject knows who you are and what you’re there for, the moment when you take out the notebook changes everything. Most journalists can tell you of the tension of chatting with a source who’s being very natural and open and giving you stuff that’s truly golden, and you want to pull out the notebook so you can get it down — but you don’t want to break the spell.

And cameras have their own unique effect. Especially TV cameras. A lot of “news” is staged completely for television cameras rather than occurring spontaneously. Wherever there’s a video camera, frankness and candid expression are diminished, and an element of the pervasive falsity that characterizes “reality” TV creeps in.

So the journalist with a camera (or a notebook) is faced with a Catch-22 sort of situation. We want the things we cover to be open and transparent — to be fully available to us so we can inform our readers. And yet by pulling out the notebook or camera, by displaying the implements of coverage so that we can get it down accurately, we alter the thing. And TV adds another dimension. When a TV camera is trained upon a subject, he begins to act, to some degree. (The difference between being on TV and being on radio is very marked, at least for me when I’m the subject. Radio is pure expression. Put me on radio and I can just flow, and am not distracted by looking at the person I’m talking to, or anything else. But on TV you’re conscious of being watched, and everything changes.)

In our desire to break down barriers between the people at their government, we’ve opened most proceedings to the public — which means opening them to us, and our notebooks and cameras, and eventually TV cameras. And mostly, that’s all to the good — although it really creeps me out when I watch a video of a member of Congress delivering an impassioned speech… to an empty chamber. Talk about phony. Of course, in Congress there’s not much honest debate anymore. Just vote counting. The Democrats have this many, and the Republicans have that many? Then the bill will pass. Who needs speeches? Who needs listening to each other? It’s tragic.

But courtrooms… courtrooms are the final frontier, and they should be. When I covered trials back in the day, I knew I couldn’t bring the camera out until I left the courtroom. Once, I thought I had a good deal with the judge, who had told me (when I was covering a particularly sensational murder case) that I could take pictures of the main participants during recesses. But I nearly got thrown into jail for contempt when I whipped out the camera immediately after the guilty verdict to get the reaction of the accused. Hey, the gavel had come down, so we were adjourned, right? Didn’t matter; the judge didn’t approve, and jumped down my throat.

But I respected that. While I was trying to do my job, the judge was doing his, trying to maintain decorum (not to mention a little respect for human dignity, something reporters sometimes forget when they’re in the throes of getting a story). And Lord knows, if we can’t have some of that in our courts of law, then we really have gone to the dogs.

What ill could come from cameras in the courtroom? Look no further than the O.J. Simpson trial, in which everyone from the high-priced defense lawyers to the judge himself were playing to the cameras, and the result was a travesty, a theater of sensationalism rather than a place for rational discernment.

So it is that I read with some reservation that Elena Kagan thinks cameras in our most hallowed court would be “a terrific thing:”

The Elena Kagan confirmation hearings continue today with hard questions from lawmakers, about her decision as dean of Harvard Law School to briefly bar military recruiters from the school’s career services office because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and about her White House years.

But The Federal Eye’s ears (!!) perked up when Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) asked about allowing television cameras into the high court:

“I recognize that some members of the court have a different view, and certainly when and if I get to the court I will talk with them about that questions, but I have said that I think it would be a terrific thing to have cameras in the courtroom,” Kagan said at C-SPAN cameras rolled (see above). “And the reason I think, is when you see what happens there, it’s an inspiring sight. … I basically attend every Supreme Court argument. … It’s an incredible sight, because all nine justices, they’re so prepared, they’re so smart, they’re so thorough, they’re so engaged, the questioning is rapid fire. You’re really seeing an institution of government at work really in an admirable way.”

“The issues are important ones … I mean, some of them will put you to sleep,” she said later to laughs. “But a lot of them, the American people should be concerned about and interested in.”

If she gets confirmed, Kagan is certainly in the minority on this issue. But still, hear, hear.

Yes, it’s an inspiring sight — if it isn’t changed by the cameras.

I’m a journalist. I’m about openness. I’m about there being no barriers between the people and the functions of their government. But the different branches have different roles, and are accountable to the people in different ways. And when we talk about something that could interfere with the effective functioning by causing Supreme Court justices to act like … well, like members of the political branches … it gives me pause.

Next thing you know, they’ll be rapping their opening statements.

Related Posts

• Editing the Declaration of Independence
• I want my, I want my, I want my Wikipedia
• The end (almost) of violence
• The new normal: This is what a complete network TV crew looks like today
• My uncomfortable “yeah, but…” about Nikki’s (apparently) illegal meeting
• Joe’s alternative to the alternative to the GOP response
• McCain has a point comparing Palin, Reagan
• That infuriating John McCain, or, How do you pitch to a hero?
• Here’s what I mean by my essential Tory sensibility
• The NYT, perhaps unsurprisingly, has a lawyer who can WRITE